Diverging paths in lacrosse as sport heats up

Chapman University's defender and team captain, Catherine LaPlant runs through drills during a recent practice at Chapman University.MICHAEL GOULDING, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

2014 men's championships at Chapman, UCI

The Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA) will host its 2014 National Championships May 12-17 at UC Irvine and Chapman University.

The championships feature two 16-team brackets competing for the Division I or II title.

The first round games will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. May 12-13 at UC Irvine. The semifinal and final games begin at noon May 15 and May 17 at Chapman.

Ticketing and general information can be found at the MCLA website: mcla.us

Chapman 2014 home schedules

Men's team:

Feb. 8: Concordia, 11 a.m.

Feb. 15: Whittier, 1 p.m.

Feb. 28: Grand Canyon, 7 p.m.

March 2: Arizona State, 1 p.m.

March 15: USC, 1 p.m.

March 22: Colorado State, 7 p.m.

April 4: LMU, 7 p.m.

April 6: UNLV, 12 p.m.

April 9: Claremont, 7:30 p.m.

Women's team:

Feb. 8: Occidental, 7 p.m.

Feb. 19: Pomona-Pitzer, 7 p.m.

Feb. 22: Oneonta St., 12 p.m.

March 14: Albion, 7 p.m.

March 19: Allegheny, 12 p.m.

March 22: Pacific (Ore.), 1 p.m.

March 29: Colorado Col., 1 p.m.

April 5: Whittier, 7 p.m.

April 16: Redlands, 7 p.m.

April 19: Claremont-M-S, 7 p.m.

Sources: mcla.us and chapmanathletics.com

The men’s and women’s lacrosse teams at Chapman both play at Ernie Chapman Stadium. They both have locker rooms, an office for coaches, and home and away jerseys with bold letters displaying “Chapman.”

But the two squads travel different paths. The men’s team, established in 1986, is a club team. The women’s team, founded in 2009, recently transitioned to the NCAA Division III level after playing at the club level.

This gender dynamic mirrors many other university and college programs throughout the West Coast, were men’s lacrosse is mostly concentrated at the club level while women’s lacrosse is spreading to the NCAA level.

Though they play in different divisions, the Chapman men’s and women’s teams are both extremely competitive. The men won three conference championships in 2008, 2009, and 2011 and advanced to the title game of the club national championship twice during that time. As a club team, the women won the national championship in its division in 2011.

“Although we are at different levels, whether it’s club or varsity, we still play Chapman-style ball: which is hard, fast, competitive,” said senior Zach Nichelman, a captain on the men’s team.

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Lacrosse was relatively new on the West Coast when Mike Pelly posted signs around Chapman for men to join his club team in 1986.

Pelly, who played lacrosse for Whittier College, started the team while working as an admissions counselor at Chapman.

“I basically recruited athletes to play and then taught them how to catch and throw,” said Pelly, who coached for five years. He is now vice chancellor and dean of enrollment management at Chapman.

The men’s team has since become a perennial club in the competitive Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association. The MCLA, established in 2007, encompasses more than 200 schools across the country, split into two divisions across 10 conferences. Chapman is a Division I member of the Southwestern Lacrosse Conference (SLC).

Chapman’s resume includes three SLC championships, two MCLA national championship appearances (2008 and 2009), and appearances in the MCLA Final Four (2010) and quarterfinals (2011).

Yet there are misconceptions about the competitiveness of club lacrosse.

“Most people, when they think of a club sport, they think of a recreational, intramural, Ultimate Frisbee team or something,” said graduate student Sammy Cemo, a captain on the men’s team. “We invest most of our lives into it.”

The men’s team, one of the more popular teams on campus, practices six days a week, holding weightlifting and game-film sessions as well. The team traveled to Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and South Carolina for games in 2013.

“We really run it like a varsity sport,” said head coach Dallas Hartley. “Club would be sort of a misconception of how seriously we take it.”

With fewer than 6,000 undergraduate students, Chapman holds its own as a Division III school. The men’s lacrosse club team, meanwhile, competes against Division I colleges much larger in size, such as USC and Arizona State.

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